Drop Point
by rukushaka
Summary: 'It's not until they're nearly at the drop point that Steve asks what country they're in. "Swiss Alps," says Nat. Clint never thought Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes would be dead weight on a mission. But they are.' Steve and Bucky face some old demons. Post-CA:CW, epic bromance, very light WinterWidow.
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own the Avengers. Or Bucky Barnes.**

 **First fic in nearly two years! And it's completed! I always said I wouldn't be one of those people who left my readers hanging, but as anyone who's read 44 Lexington can attest to... yeah, not so good on that one. Sorry. So this is Chapter One of Four. All four chapters are written (total wordcount around 7k, if you're interested) so all I have to do is upload the chapters.**

 **I'll either do a one-per-day update or a one-per-week update, depends on how busy I get and on how badly you want it ;) Reviews are nice.**

 **You won't be left hanging on this one. I promise.**

* * *

The mission comes out of nowhere, a search-and-retrieve that needs dealing with _now_ and _quietly._ Clint takes Nat and the quinjet, they pick up Steve and Bucky on their way through the city, and soon they're out of the States heading for Europe.

"Tony?" Steve asks.

"Too loud." At the helm, Natasha doesn't even look around.

"Bruce?"

"Too big."

"It's just us," Clint breaks in. "We need stealth for this."

"No superheroes." Nat flicks a grin over her shoulder, bright and sharp. "Just three master assassins and one all-American soldier."

"Get in, get the papers, get out. Minimal casualties. None at all if you can help it." Clint tries not to look at Bucky. The shorter haircut suits him, even balanced out with grizzled stubble as it is. Makes him look younger and older at the same time, somehow. More like James Barnes and less like the Winter Soldier. Certainly makes his expression easier to read: out of the corner of his eye Clint can see something between a grimace and a smirk cross the man's face.

He can't help it, Clint knows. He's been working on his reactions ever since he came out of cryo for the last time, working and working on it, but mind and body are very different things. His mind might be healed, but his body will never forget the decades of hard training.

Sometimes that training takes over without Bucky's conscious input.

The next few hours are a whirl of gearing up and briefing, _this is the target train, the papers are under guard in this compartment here, we'll land on the roof and go in through a window._ It's not until they're nearly at the drop point that Steve asks what country they're in.

"Switzerland," says Nat.

Turning back from checking their coordinates, Clint just barely catches the flash of… something… that passes over Steve. He can't tell what it is, exactly. The next second it's gone, and he almost wonders if it was ever there. But of course it was. His eyes don't lie. His _ears_ might be dodgy — and he lifts a hand to check his hearing aids mechanically, methodically, because the dead of winter in a howling blizzard is no time for a malfunction there — but his eyes have never lied.

Steve's chin lifts to its natural resolute tilt.

"Over the Alps," she adds.

He's watching carefully, this time. He sees the minute twitch of a muscle in Steve's jaw. The way Bucky shifts his weight to brush an arm against Steve's, the way the two friends don't look at each other at all.

"Problem?" Clint asks.

Bucky swallows. "No. No problem."

Clint nods and turns away to the console, giving them their moment. He'd expected nothing less, if he was honest. For all that they're a team, the four of them, and even something of a family… there are still things that remain secret.

He's seen Bucky staring at Tony when the billionaire casually plays with his armour, attaching and detaching the plates from shoulder to fingertip like it's the easiest thing in the world. Seen the way Steve finds an excuse to remove Bucky from the room, the way the blank look in Bucky's eyes has dissipated by the time they return.

He knows the secrets he and Nat hold between them, the red in their ledgers, the shared fear that every move taken to erase it only adds more. Blood can't erase blood, no matter how hard they try, and for all that they just want to build a better world for his family and her friends… sometimes they wonder if they aren't doing the exact opposite.

Clint _likes_ Steve. He does. They're friends, good friends. Clint knows what it's like to want to help, even when you feel outmatched by everyone around you. In a small way, a paltry way, really, he knows what it's like to leave family and friends behind, to lose months, _years_ , and return to find them grown, changed, different.

But of course, he always had that choice. To go or to stay, it was always his choice.

Steve didn't have that choice.

He'd chosen the serum, though.

Bucky hadn't even had _that_ choice.

And he empathises with Bucky in all the ways he can't empathise with do-gooder Steve. Because he, like Bucky, has been brainwashed. Has had his own will jerked out from under his feet, leaving him in free fall. Has — has _killed —_ under that influence. And he can't remember either.

Oh, he remembers the pain and the fear and the frozen numbness, and the overwhelming compulsion to follow orders, whatever those orders may be. But he doesn't remember events. What actually happened. Who he killed. How many —

He forces the thoughts away. It's over. It was years ago.

It's over.

"Clint. Two minutes."

He nods and turns to check his equipment. Casts a covert eye over Steve and Bucky. They're back to normal. Good.

They've got work to do.

Nat puts the jet down on a tiny snow-strewn plateau with pinpoint precision. They slip their earpieces into place — Clint's a custom one to fit over his hearing aid — and Nat's voice comes clear through the channel.

"Testing, testing."

"Reading you loud and clear," Bucky says.

"I'll bet you are." Nat smirks at him.

Bucky smirks right back.

Clint and Steve exchange a glance. There's a hint of an eye-roll in Clint's look, and a hint of elation in Steve's. They're still not entirely sure where Bucky and Nat are at in their relationship. It's early, but wherever it is, it looks like a good place to be. The two of them have a habit of devolving into intense conversations in Russian… or, that one time, into a sombre duet: Bucky at the piano, Nat perched beside him, both of them staring far-off into nothing as they sang in Russian.

Steve's happy because his old friend is back: Bucky Barnes, Smooth Charmer. And Clint's happy because Nat has finally found someone who can handle her, who she can be her real self around.

Discounting him, of course. But romance was never really their thing.

They pretend that short-lived catastrophe with Banner never happened.

Clint engages the door sequence and steps down onto the snowy ledge overlooking the gorge, wincing at the icy wind whipping around him. Good thing he'd packed their winter uniforms. He huddles deeper into his jacket, matches the map on his wrist with the visual before him, and nods. "All clear. Intel was accurate."

The others join him, staring down at the train tracks winding their way through the ravine far below. The lights of the train itself are a dim glow a few miles off.

Clint stretches one arm and then the other, limbering up. "Still want to risk the parachutes in this wind? Or are we zip-lining it?"

"Zip-line," Nat says without hesitation.

Steve and Bucky are silent.

"And a vote from the other half of this team?" Clint turns to clap Steve on the back. What's taking him so long to decide? And Bucky, for that matter — Bucky's usually the first to volunteer for a madcap stunt like this.

He stops.

Bucky's face is blank. Blanker than blank. His shoulders are loose, muscles lax. He's never looked less ready for action. His mouth is a narrow line, and his eyes… his eyes look _dead._ Steve, though — Steve stares down at the gorge with wide eyes, an expression of pure horror plastered across his face. Clint's never seen him like this. Never seen either of them like this.

"Nat."

She spits something swift and crude under her breath and steps to Bucky's side. Doesn't touch him. "Hey," she murmurs, eyes narrowed, darting from Bucky to Steve and back again. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay, we're here."

Steve inhales a whistling breath. "It's — it's not — " He gulps air. Clint can see him grasping for the words. He's not speaking to them. Not speaking to anyone. This is gut instinct, base recoil. "It's not — _there._ It's not. It can't be."

"It's not," Nat says softly, reassuring, and meets Clint's eyes over Steve's shoulder. He reads the message there and nods. She doesn't have a clue what they're talking about, she doesn't know why they're like this, but they're obviously in no fit state to go forward.

He never thought Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes would be deadweight on a mission.

But they are.

They'll be staying with the jet. Clint and Nat will do the mission alone — and despite the concern gnawing at him, he almost smiles at that. J _ust like old times._

All times are old, these days. He shoves back the world-weariness, straightens his shoulders under the invisible load of an abruptly halved team, and puts a hand on Steve's arm.

"Come on," he says. "Back inside. You and Bucky can guard the jet 'til we get back."

They follow without a murmur of protest, and Clint feels it like a punch to the gut. _What happened to you?_ Steve's head swivels so that his gaze stays fixed on the ravine. His mouth gapes, breathing too fast, his teeth bared like a wounded animal. Bucky is almost worse: he stumbles at Nat's side, eyes glazed, head hanging as if he doesn't have the energy to even hold it upright.

Clint and Nat get them seated onto the bench beside each other. They force hot drinks into their hands, wrap blankets around them. Nat takes a second to send a message back to base, letting them know the change in plans.

Outside, beyond the howl of the wind, Clint hears the sound of the train.

"We need to go," he says.

Nat nods and strides for the exit ramp.

When they get back, papers in hand, Steve and Bucky haven't moved. They don't speak while Nat and Clint go through the pre-flight checks. They don't stir even when the jet is in the air and headed east to America.

Bucky slumps exactly where they left him, unresponsive, blanket drooping off his metal shoulder, staring with blind eyes at the wall of the cabin. He's shivering. His right hand grips the mug of coffee with white knuckles. The level hasn't decreased at all. His left arm… Clint blinks. The metal arm hangs slack at his side, unmoving. Now that he thinks about it, Clint hasn't seen it move once since Bucky stepped out onto the plateau.

His stomach drops.

Steve still stares out in the darkness beyond the snow flurries, as if drawn there by a magnet. His eyes aren't blank; they're alive, wild with emotion, filled with everything savage and sorrowing. Tear tracks stain his face; his breathing is ragged, his expression crumpled with agony like a man who's just lost… his… best… friend…

 _Damn._

It only takes a second to enter a query into the console. Nat looks over with a frown, sees the result, and closes her eyes in realisation.

 _Barnes, Sergeant James Buchanan 'Bucky'_

 _Presumed dead … Howling Commandos … Winter mission … Swiss Alps, January 1945 … ensuing fight, Barnes fell from the Schnellzug EB912 armoured train with Rogers unable to…_

"Send a message to home base," Clint says, feeling sick. "Let them know. We might need backup."


	2. Chapter 2

**I don't own the Avengers. Or Bucky Barnes.**

 **It might be a one-chapter-every-couple-of-days update schedule. That strikes a nice balance between one-a-day and one-a-week, doesn't it? Yes? I thought so, too.**

 **This is Chapter Two of Four. Welcome to Steve's POV! Hope you like it. It's a little shorter than last chapter, but there's a lot of hurt. And comfort. :)**

 **Next chapter we have Bucky's POV (longer). And Ch.4 is Nat's (even longer again).**

 **Thank you to everyone who's left a review! I love them. They make me smile like a loon. Really. Thank you so much.**

 **You won't be left hanging on this one. I promise.**

* * *

Steve is aware. He's not aware of much, but he's aware of enough. He knows it's Bucky beside him. He knows that Bucky knows it's him. He can't find it in himself to move, and he doubts Bucky can move either, and he knows that that tenuous connection of shoulder-against-shoulder is the only thing stopping both of them from going completely off the rails.

Past clashes against present in his head, history against reality, assumption against fact. Bucky's dying scream is frozen somewhere in his chest. He _can'tbreathe can'tbreathe can'tbreathe_ but he can, he is, he's breathing. Every inhale chokes him, every exhale burns like fire in his lungs, but he's alive, he's breathing.

And beside him, Bucky is alive. Bucky is breathing.

Some distant part of him is still on alert, ready for action. But he's safe here. He knows he's safe. He can break down with no fear of the consequences.

This is death.

It had to happen sometime.

Dimly he realises that Bucky is muttering under his breath, a nonstop cadence of _Sergeant_ _James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James._ Perhaps it's not surprising. Anything to keep him grounded.

Sometime later, the words peter out. Bucky is silent for the rest of the trip.

Steve feels the jet slow and stop. They must be home. He's aware of gentle words and gentler movements, aware of a change in atmosphere when they step inside. Beside him, despite the warmth of the room, Bucky's ever-present shivering intensifies.

He's aware enough to fight — not a real fight, not violent, but a struggle — when they try to take him and Bucky to seperate rooms. He doesn't break contact with Bucky. Not once.

They curl up back-to-back in the narrow bed, just like their army days, and he smells antiseptic and makes the connection to the medical bay and doesn't flinch when cool fingers sweep sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead. At his back, Bucky shivers worse than ever. Worse than those harsh winter nights sharing a tent with the rest of Howling Commandos. Almost worse than when Steve found him in Zola's facility in 1943.

But not quite that bad.

Words fly around them, _non responsive_ and _our fault,_ _should have read up_ and _hope this doesn't reverse the —_ and Steve tunes it out, tunes all of it out, the talk and the movement and the sharp tang of panic, and he listens to Bucky breathe.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

He's shivering too, he realises. And crying. Again. Still? Yes, still. Even seventy years later, he's still crying over Bucky's death.

It's not enough, this back-to-back contact. He can't see Bucky. What if it's not him, what if it's something planted by Hydra, a clone or a hallucination or — or —

Steve rolls on the spot, feels the focus of the room change, discards the information as unimportant. He wraps an arm around Bucky, feels him tremble, tucks his best friend's head under his chin and breathes.

There. That's Bucky. The shampoo is different, an expensive facsimile of the cheap stuff they used when they were kids, but it's Bucky alright. Steve's shivering eases. The tears don't.

That's alright. He can cry. He can cry for both of them.

He knows he's safe. They're both safe. But all the same… Bucky can't protect himself. Even _Steve_ can hardly protect himself now. His head's too scrambled, mind too lost in the haze of terror and anguish and blind shock. But Bucky can't protect himself. At all.

Which means, if push comes to shove, it's up to Steve. His grip tightens.

Bucky stares straight ahead, expression unchanged. He could be carved into stone for all the acknowledgement he gives Steve. They're lying on their right-hand sides; Bucky's left arm, the metal one, lies motionless. Steve doubts he feels it. Doubt he feels anything right now.

Anything but the cold and the pain.

For a second he watches Bucky, half-convinced he heard a noise, a strangled dying moan of pain… but no. There was nothing.

He closes his eyes against Bucky's thousand-yard stare.

 _Wanda,_ someone says. _Do it now. Carefully._

A slim hand rests on his temple. He cracks his eyes open to see its twin on Bucky's head. Something rises in him, a surge of _pain-grief-fear_ and then irrational _rage, don't touch him, don't you touch Bucky,_ but before he can _move-react-protect_ the world falls away into darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**I don't own the Avengers. Or Bucky Barnes.**

 **A big thank-you to my American-picker (like a Brit-Picker, but for US English). You know who you are :)**

 **I love you guys! Have another chapter, and thanks for the reviews and follows and favourites and what-not.**

 **Chapter Three of Four, right here.**

 **Chapter Four... oh boy. The big one is comin' right up. In approximately 48 hours, or maybe a bit less.**

 **Thanks again. Leave me a note if you're enjoying it!**

* * *

Steve's gone when Bucky wakes up. The pieces slot into place without conscious thought. _Where?_ Home base. Medical bay. _Why?_ Mission. Swiss Alps. Prolonged flashback. _Status?_ Normal. Ish.

He's shivering.

He glances at the monitor for long enough to note his resting heart rate and blood pressure. They're normal enough. He peels the cuff off his arm. Scratches idly at the sticky residue it leaves behind. Leaves the cuff on the bed and crosses to the storage cupboard, where they keep a good stack of one-size-fits-most sweats.

A hot shower takes care of the sleep-fluff left from Wanda's helping hand. He turns the heat up and up and up, but even at near scalding point, he can't stop shivering.

It's been, what, more than seventy years? He should be used to it by now.

He's not.

Steve's waiting when he enters the common room. The others are too, but they don't matter now.

"You're alright?" Bucky asks, standing in front of the couch, close enough to brush against Steve's knees.

If he was anyone else, Steve would protest the invasion of personal space. Bucky isn't anyone else. Not now. He hasn't been for a long time.

"Fine," says Steve. "You're shivering."

"Psychosomatic hypothermia. It'll pass."

Steve nods and blanks the screen he's been staring at. He looks exhausted.

Bucky doesn't comment on the fact that it looked a lot like a camera-view of their medical room. He looks around the room, automatically noting locations and positions, exit points, visible weaponry. "Did I hurt anyone?" He makes sure to direct the question mostly toward Clint and Nat, sitting together at the breakfast bar.

Clint shakes his head.

"No," says Nat. "You didn't hurt anyone." Her mouth frames the words _except yourself,_ but she doesn't say them aloud.

She doesn't need to.

He takes another moment to scan the two of them, using every bit of trickery and visual strategy he knows to take them apart almost down to the molecule and rebuild them. He has to know. If they —

Part of him can hardly bear to think it, because _they're his friends, dammit,_ and friends don't do things like that. But the more dominant part of him is coldly rational, analytical, logical, and it is this part of him that will divine the truth. This part of him that will rip them limb from limb —

If they did it on purpose, if they took him and Steve to that place with any foreknowledge, any _hint_ that they would react as strongly as they had… if it was just a joke, if it was a test, if they'd done it because _they wanted to know what would happen_ …

He will kill them.

"Buck?" Steve asks. He's sitting upright now. Concerned.

"Did you know?" Bucky asks Nat and Clint. He doesn't think they did. They're both good at hiding things when they want to, but right now they're two pages of an open book. He can read the guilt and the apology, the anger at their own ignorance. Neither of them like being caught off guard, not by something like this, something they should have known.

 _They should have known._

But they hadn't. He doesn't know whose fault that is. Maybe his, for not telling them. Maybe theirs, for not doing the research. Maybe nobody's.

Nat shakes her head.

"No." Clint looks grim. "We had no idea. I'm sorry."

They're speaking the truth. Bucky relaxes. "Don't be. You weren't informed."

"Well," says Tony from his spot in the corner, "actually — "

Someone shuts him up, maybe, but Bucky has stopped listening. He collapses onto the couch beside Steve and slings an arm around him. He needs the contact. They both need the contact.

"What about you?" Steve asks, that concerned little v between his eyebrows. "Are you okay?"

Bucky takes a slow breath. Lets the memories roll over him and wash away again. "I will be."

"What does that mean?" Nat asks. She and Clint have moved from the breakfast bar; they're perched on the armchair beside Bucky, one on each arm, feet mingling on the butt cushion.

"I'll second that," says Bruce. He's sitting beside Wanda and Sam on another couch, hair dishevelled, his socked feet up on the coffee table, to all appearances immersed in his book.

With Bruce, as with all of them, appearances can be misleading.

He shifts his glasses up his nose and looks at Bucky. "What _does_ that mean? Are you relapsing?"

"No," says Bucky. If anything could have set one off, it would have been that. But he hasn't had a relapse since he came out of cryo, and he's not about to start now. "No relapse. I just…" He lifts his metal hand. Watches the light glint off it, the way it moves as he wriggles his fingers, makes a fist, straightens out again. He tries to connect the visual to the sensation, and fails. "My arm hurts."

Steve, predictably, reaches out and puts a hand on his forearm, probing cautiously as if he can diagnose what's wrong with it from touch alone. "I didn't think there were any nerves in there?"

"There aren't. Not in the traditional sense, at least. I mean, it hurt like hell when Stark amputated it that time — "

In the background, Tony mutters something that might be a grumbly and much-repeated apology.

" — but it's never had the same feel to it as my human arm. Anyway, I didn't mean this one. Or that one," he adds, as Steve's eyes flicker to his 100%-Bucky-Barnes-human-flesh right arm.

Bruce's puzzled frown vanishes a second before Wanda's. "Your old arm."

Bucky nods. Grits his teeth against the ghosting tug from a limb that hasn't been attached to him in seventy years. "My old arm. Yes."

Steve eases back. Looks at him curiously. Opens his mouth. Closes it again.

Bucky leans his head against the couch and musters a tired grin. "What?"

"I don't mean to — "

"Steve. What is it?"

"I — What does it feel like? I know it hurts, but… how?"

He turns that over for a minute, trying to decide how to answer it. If he's honest, brutally honest, it feels like bitter failure and mindless fear and pain, so much pain, pain he'd never dreamed he could endure. But he can't tell Steve that. Not if he wants him to sleep at all in the next week.

"Cold," Bucky says eventually. "It feels cold. Not numb-cold. Just… freezing, bone-deep, teeth-aching cold. Like the day we blew the bridge up. That sort of cold."

As it is, that's quite enough. He sees the dark rise in Steve's eyes and tenses, wondering if that alone was enough to… but no. Steve shakes his head like he's shaking off a fly. The dark recedes. "I'm sorry."

Bucky tips his head and stares at him, perplexed. "What?"

"I'm sorry. I never —"

"You've got nothing _—_ "

" — never got the chance to tell you —"

" — to be sorry for, _nothing —_ "

" — I should have grabbed you, I should have stretched just that little bit further and —"

" — Don't be an idiot, Steve, you couldn't have gone any further than you did or you would have fallen, too!"

" — grabbed you, I should have jumped after you and —" Steve stops.

Bucky straightens. Stares at him in dawning horror. "You _what._ "

Steve's gaze flicks away. He shrugs miserably. "I could have survived it. I think."

"No." Too much. It's too much. "You don't. You never think! You didn't think when you picked fights with bully after bully and who had to come and bail you out, huh? I did! If you'd jumped… Steve. No. _No._ The only way I survived was because Zola had already been doing — _things_ — to me — " Bucky has to turn his head away from the anguish in Steve's eyes, and even thinking about what Zola did to him on that table is enough to make him want to vomit — "and they found me before I succumbed to hypothermia or bled out completely! You've got no idea if you would have survived it!"

"I would have! You don't know what the serum did to me, I would have survived it."

" _You would have died!_ " Bucky's on his feet, looming over Steve, trying to get that through his thick skull.

" _You did!"_ Steve's standing too, chest-to-chest, looking ready to throw the first punch except that's ridiculous, they've never fought with fists, only with words…

Bucky stops. Takes a breath. Slows his heart rate until he's sure the trembling is only from cold, not from anger. "I did," he admits. "I died. In more ways than one."

Steve's face is white.

"And you know what?"

He shakes his head. "What?"

"I'd do it again if it means you survive."

Steve flinches.

Bucky sits back down and drops his head into his hands. He feels the couch sink as Steve sits beside him, feels the tension in the room ease as their impromptu audience switches out of high alert.

"I felt it break, you know," he says.

Steve doesn't say anything.

"My arm." Bucky drops his metal hand and looks at it, turning it this way and that. "I tried to break my fall. It snapped. Here." He touches the inner forearm just down from his wrist. "And here." Another touch near the elbow. "Hurt like… I don't know. A lot."

Beneath the paralysing fear and the flailing terror of his imminent demise, his heart had hurt, too. Because as much as Steve lost Bucky that day… Bucky lost Steve.

"And then I hit an outcrop," he goes on, more matter of fact now. "Hit it hard. It was sharp. Lost my arm. Right here." He draws an imaginary line across his bicep at the precise angle the rock had shorn it off at. "Hit the bottom of the ravine not long after that, I think. Not entirely sure. Went into shock pretty soon, lost consciousness… I thought I knew what pain was." He laughs grimly. "I didn't have a clue."

"Please," Steve whispers. "Stop."

Bucky looks up. At first he's almost puzzled at the sick look on Steve's face, but of course. He's never told him any of this before. All Steve knows of it is the fall, and then Bucky showing up decades later with a metal arm and a psychotic urge to kill his best friend. He throws a glance around the room, absorbing the expressions. Horror, nausea, disgust, pity, morbid curiosity… nothing he hasn't seen before.

They might be superheroes, but the Avengers are as predictable as the next human when it comes to emotion.

"Sorry," he says, not really meaning it. Steve had to know. And it feels something like catharsis on his end.

"You're a punk," says Steve, and hugs him.

"Jerk." Bucky returns the tight embrace.

He's missed this. Even when he didn't know what he was missing, he's missed it. Missed Steve.

But they can't sit around being nostalgic all day. He's got a job to do.

"I need to do something," he says, standing up.

"No," says Steve immediately.

"And I need your help."

" _No_."

He knows how to win this one. It's too easy. "I'll do it without you. But I would appreciate the help."

Steve gapes at him. Glares at the others when they laugh too loudly. Lets out a breath in defeat. "What is it?"

"Nat. Clint. You too. Actually, all of you might as well come. In the event of anything happening…"

It won't. It won't happen. But he has to try it. He has to know _,_ really _know,_ that even if a flashback cripples him he won't be a danger to others, to Steve, ever again.

"Stark," he says.

Tony waves a hand from the corner. "Uh. Barnes. Yeah?"

"I need to borrow the Other Guy's room."


	4. Chapter 4

**I don't own the Avengers. Or Bucky Barnes.**

 **As always, thanks to my American-picker for saving my backside, and thank you to everyone who's read, reviewed, favourited, followed, and expressed general distress at the situation I've put our team into. ;) You rock.**

 **Here we go, guys. Chapter Four of Four. The Big One. Natasha's point of view.**

 **Thanks again. Leave me a note if you enjoyed it!**

* * *

Nat follows them downstairs, Clint at her side. Bucky and Steve walk in step at the front of the group, elbows jostling, heads together. Hissed arguments float back to her. She doesn't bother paying them much attention. Bucky's won this. He won it the moment Steve called him by name, back when he was under Hydra's control.

"What do you think?" Clint asks.

The reaction to Bucky's plan had been… well. Mostly stunned disbelief, really.

Bruce had chuckled and shook his head. Took his glasses off. Polished them on his shirt tail. Put them back on. "I can't decide if you're more brave or stupid."

"Stupid," said Steve. "Definitely."

Wanda had looked thoughtful. "I can pull you back if you get in too deep. But I can't redo the effects of the cryo. That's on you."

Now, Nat finds she's in favour of the plan, somewhat to her surprise. "I think we should let him."

"He tried to kill you," Clint says.

"I tried to kill him, too."

"He tried to kill _me_."

She grins. "I know."

"That doesn't worry you?"

"Don't take it personally. He tried to kill most of us at one time or another. But it's in the past, Clint. He's on our side now."

"You mean he's on Steve's side."

Bucky turns a neat 180 and walks backward, keeping in time with Steve while looking straight at Clint. "I heard that. And I know you don't mean it."

"Sorry, what?" Clint fakes innocence and cups a hand to his ear, grinning.

Bucky repeats the point in flawless sign language before spinning around to face forward again.

Clint's jaw drops, and Nat laughs. "He's got you there."

"I'll get him. One of these days, I'll…"

"No you won't," calls Bucky over his shoulder, and goes back to the argument with Steve like he'd never left it in the first place.

The Other Guy's room, as it turns out, is a diamond-paned room ("Not the shape," Tony mutters behind her, "the stone.") at the centre of a very deep moat in the middle of a vast cavern. As Tony explains all the defences and counter-measures he's put in place and Bruce looks more and more amused/uncomfortable, Bucky draws Nat off to the side.

"Are you okay with this?" he asks in Russian.

"Yes. Why wouldn't I be?"

He cocks an eyebrow. "Because I could revert to the mindless homicidal maniac I used to be, perhaps?"

"You won't," Nat says.

His certainty wavers for a moment, just long enough for her to see it as the mask it is. "How do you know?"

"Because you'd never put us in danger like that."

"I might be doing just that," he says, half under his breath. His eyes drop for a moment and lift again. "I need you to understand, Nat. I need to _know —_ "

"I know." She smiles. "You need to make sure that's behind you. All of it. That it won't ever come back, even if you're triggered."

"Yes."

"Hey." She puts a hand to his metal arm. "I understand, okay?"

She feels almost jealous of him, sometimes. At least he has the excuse of the brainwashing. Some of them have done things just as terrible while in their right mind.

Some shadows aren't so easily shaken.

The tension drains from him. "Thank you." He hesitates; something soft and yearning crosses his face; and then, infinitely gentle, he kisses her cheek.

Nat tries to memorise the sensation, because it's everything the Winter Soldier is not. Warm. Emotional. _Human._ It's everything Hydra stripped from him, methodically, systematically, for decades. It's everything he's spent the last few years digging in the ashes for, clawing it back piece-by-piece from the grasping clutch of ghosts.

This is Bucky Barnes now.

And this is what he will still be when this is over.

He steps back, that granite certainty settling into the lines of his face again, the devil-may-care dancing in his eyes. And he passes her a folded piece of paper.

She opens it and see the list of neatly handwritten words.

He's given her the power to destroy him.

"Steve can't — ?"

Bucky shakes his head. "Steve can't speak Russian."

She absorbs that. "Right."

"You'll do it?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"See you on the other side," she says, only half joking. The other half is sick with nerves, because they don't know for sure what that other side will be. Oh, she said she knows. But nobody knows for sure, do they?

Already halfway across the floor, he lifts a hand and calls a casual, "Wilco," over his shoulder.

And pauses.

 _Bad move,_ Nat thinks. She knows the response required when he was triggered. Wilco — _will comply —_ is standard talk for the Avengers, but here and now it's too close, far too close, to that verbal _ready to comply_ his handlers asked for. It doesn't matter that it's in a different language. Bucky's so close to the edge after yesterday that intent alone would be enough…

Steve's head comes up, a concerned frown flashing across his face. Bucky tenses, shoulders straightening into something perilously close to a fighting stance.

And then he relaxes and keeps walking.

She blows out a breath. Grips the paper. And goes to stand with Clint at the console.

Bucky doesn't resist when they cuff his hands behind his back. Why should he? He's the one who suggested this stunt, the one who's making the rest of them go along with it. He walks across the drawbridge and into the room willingly. He jokes with Bruce while they strap him to a chair that's been welded to the floor.

It's only when the door slams shut, locks firing into place, that his smile drops. He's shivering again, she notices. Or still. But it's cold down here, she can feel it even through her jacket, and he's in the borrowed med locker sweatpants and hoodie.

Clint clasps a hand to her shoulder and shifts closer. She appreciates it. It's a casual reminder of his presence, a nonverbal reassurance that she and Steve aren't the only ones worried here.

Not worried _about_ Bucky.

Worried _for_ him.

Bucky leans his head against the back of the chair, breathing unsteady. And then, eyes cold, he sets his jaw and deliberately tests the restraints.

"Are we clear?" Steve asks through the microphone when Bucky's finished. He's watching Bucky with an intensity she's rarely seen. The frown is a constant companion now.

"Clear," Bucky says. His voice comes loud through the console speakers; of course Tony put good microphones in the cage. "I can't speak for whether I'm stronger under the influence, I don't know — "

"About point zero two," Steve says absently.

" — but I'm not getting out of here under my own power anytime soon. That being said, you may want to form a perimeter before Natasha tries to trigger me. Steve, I need you front and centre where I can see you. If I'm wrong about this, you've got the best shot at talking me down."

"I'm not — "

"I said _talking,_ not _taking._ "

And just like that, Steve settles.

Tony gives the orders and soon they're spread out around the cavern. Wanda's close by, ready and waiting in case she needs to send Bucky to sleep. Nat's at the console with the microphone. Clint's somewhere up top with an arrow or three on the string. And Steve's front and centre as Bucky asked, with five metres — and a diamond-rock wall — separating them.

They're not usually codependent on anything like this level, but after the last twenty four hours, she can tell the enforced distance is making both Steve and Bucky edgy. Steve's shield is on his arm, but the arm itself isn't raised. He prowls up and down in front of the cell, his fingers twitching like they want to reach through the clear wall and pluck Bucky out of his self-imposed prison. Bucky, for his part, looks almost relaxed in his chair. It's only when she notes the flaring of his nostrils, the almost desperate way he tracks Steve with his gaze, the way Steve keeps his head turned so as to not break eye contact, that she realises how much this is already rattling him.

And they've hardly even started.

"Okay, Nat." Bucky takes a breath, eyes fixed on Steve, and Steve stills, feet planted squarely, facing the cell. "When you're ready."

She takes her own steadying breath. Smooths the creases out of the paper. She doesn't want to do this, she really doesn't, but Bucky needs her to, and there's nothing to be gained by delaying.

She starts to read.

" _Zhelaniye._ "

Bucky gasps, and she darts a quick look up at him. He's shaking worse than before. He speaks without looking away from Steve. "It's nothing. Memories. Keep going."

" _Rzhavyy._ "

Another gasp. The camera view on the console shows his hands gripping together white-knuckled behind him.

" _Semnadtsat'._ "

His teeth clench.

" _Rassvet._ "

Bucky drops his head, and for a moment she thinks they've lost him — but his eyes stay with Steve, locked in that blue gaze. He's still with them. For now.

" _Pech'. Devyat'._ " She says those two in quick succession, hoping to get it over with.

Bucky groans. He's sweating, looking like the words are torturing him worse than Hydra ever had, but he forces out through gritted teeth: "I'm here. Keep. Going."

" _Dobroserdechnyy._ "

Another groan, quieter than the last.

" _Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu._ "

Silence.

" _Odin._ "

Silence.

Last one. " _Gruzovoy vagon._ "

He shudders, a full-body spasm that would have jerked him from the chair if he hadn't been strapped down. But his eyes are still on Steve, clear and alert. He's still with them.

He's still with her.

" _Soldat?_ " she asks, because if she's going to do this, she's damn well going to do it properly.

A breathless smile crosses his face. " _Ne gotov otvechat._ " And then, before Stark can get the wrong idea and pull the plug on the whole thing, he says in English, "Not ready to comply. Not now, not ever. And your Russian is beautiful, by the way. Absolutely flawless."

"I know," she says, and can't stop her own smile bubbling up. "But thank you."

Steve makes a gulping, desperate noise and springs toward the door, hand rising to enter the unlock sequence.

Bucky's voice rings out. "Don't."

Steve stops. Turns to look at Bucky, and even from the console desk Nat can see the hurt, confused stare. "What? Bucky — "

"Don't," he says again. His eyes drop to the ground. "We're safe there, that's good. But — " his breath catches.

"But?" Steve leaps across the moat, landing on the narrow toe-hold this side of the wall. Splays a hand against it like he's expecting Bucky to cross the floor and mimic the action.

But Bucky's still strapped to the chair. A red flush creeps up his cheekbones. "I didn't." He blinks a few times. Swallows. "Didn't want you know. But they, uh… they made me do it. Sometimes."

"Do what?"

"Trigger myself."

Steve wavers. Curls a hand into the wall to steady himself. "What?"

"Oh, you're going to make me repeat it? Bad enough that I had to say it the first time. Are you sure it's _Clint_ who needs hearing aids?"

Natasha, for one, finds the touch of humour welcome. She hears a snort of laughter over the comms channel from Clint, and another from Sam.

Steve doesn't smile. "They made you trigger yourself."

"Yeah." Bucky takes a sharp breath through his nose, still staring at his feet. "I don't know why. Don't think they needed a reason. Just to see if they could, I s'pose. But… it means that's still a threat."

"So you're going to try it."

"I am." Bucky's eyes lift and quickly fall again, but it's long enough for Nat to see the stark fear in them.

Long enough for Steve to see it, too. He leaps back across the moat, comes around to stand in front of Bucky again. "Okay," he says. "I'm here. Whenever you're ready."

In the rear camera, Bucky's hands are shaking. The first noise that leaves his mouth is incomprehensible, a garbled nothing of remembered horror. He lifts his eyes again, fixes them on Steve, and she can see them both clinging to the eye contact.

Nat watches him gather himself.

And he recites slowly, with a measured cadence, not rushing, not delaying:

" _Zhelaniye. Rzhavyy. Semnadtsat'. Rassvet. Pech'._ "

No change. He's sweating as much as he was before.

" _Devyat'. Dobroserdechnyy._ "

She's expecting a pause at some point, some sort of break to gather himself and go on, but the list is relentless. Even in pain, overwhelmed by memories of torture, _Bucky_ is relentless.

" _Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu. Odin. Gruzovoy vagon…_ "

That's all ten. Nat holds her breath.

" _Soldat?_ " Only now, when the list is complete, does he stop.

He tilts his head. His eyes narrow in concentration for a long moment, and she gets the feeling he's analysing himself, every thump of his heart, every drop of blood flowing through his veins, examining it for anything impure, anything that might still belong to Hydra and not to James Buchanan Barnes.

The smile breaks out again. "No. _Not_ ready to comply. Not now. Not ever. I'm not — not ready — not — " He slumps forward, head hanging. For a moment the only thing she can hear is his heavy breathing. And then he laughs, breathless and disbelieving, elated like she's never seen him before. His shoulders shake. Droplets splash to ground at his feet; at first she thinks it's sweat, because he has been sweating, hasn't he? And then as Steve races to the door and hits the unlock sequence, Bucky catches his breath on a sob and she realises.

 _Oh. He's crying. Bucky Barnes is crying._

And then Steve's there, in the cell with him, and Bucky is muffling his sobs into Steve's shoulder even as Steve works frantically to free him from the chair. The others pour in, trying to help Steve get Bucky out even as they try to give Bucky some space, because they've never seen the Winter Soldier cry before, they've never seen _Bucky Barnes_ cry before.

Nat feels the hand at her back a second before her knees go weak. Clint keeps a hand on her until she's got herself together again. His eyes look suspiciously bright; he opens his mouth, closes it again, shrugs helplessly. Clearly bereft of words, he signs, J _ob well done, huh?_

 _Yeah,_ she signs back, as Steve helps Bucky out of the cell to freedom. _Job very well done._


End file.
